"Ren, wait!"
Ena shouted.
Ren stopped.
She rushed forward, speeding past him until she stood right before him, breath uneven, thoughts tangled in everything she wished she could ignore.
"I... I'm sorry for doubting you. I just—"
She began, but before she could finish, Ren cut her off.
"I understand," he said, his voice steady, unshaken. "I was there. Remember?"
"How could I forget?" Ena exhaled, a flicker of something unspoken in her eyes. "I'm sorry."
Ren's gaze sharpened, though his expression remained unreadable.
"You keep apologising for something that isn't even yours to bear," he said, voice low but firm. "Raiden made a mistake. He misunderstood, and it hurt you. So now, as a defence, you doubt people. I get it. You don't need to explain."
He paused, his tone quiet but confident.
"We're friends. We always have been. And Raiden—he's my friend too. His doubt didn't just wound you. It hurt me. All of us."
He looked past her then, as if weighing memories he hadn't voiced before.
"He made a stupid mistake—one that cost trust. Not just in him, but in ourselves."
For a moment, his voice shifted, softer but edged with something else—something rawer.
"It's fine. If anything, I should be the one apologising. I wasn't myself."
Ena said nothing.
But in the silence, she thought about that moment in the council chamber—the way Ren would close his eyes, his presence shifting just enough to remind her of something else.
Something older.
Something that had once swallowed the world.
She had felt it before—long ago, in the final battle.
When Asia itself had been reduced to fire and silence.
She had stood there, watching.
Unable to move.
And in the heart of that inferno, there had been nothing.
Nothing but him.
And yet, even then—
Even in the fire, even in the ruin—
"Save as many as you can."
The innocent had been spared.
But there had been no mercy for those who deserved nothing but oblivion.
Untouched. Unchallenged. Unbroken.
She hoped she was wrong.
She didn't want to doubt him.
And yet, in that moment, she realised she was.
Again.
Tempting Fate, Testing Trust
Ren stepped forward.
Without warning, his hand lifted, resting gently atop her head, fingers threading through strands of her hair.
"A woman as beautiful as you, Ena..." His steady voice conveyed a mixture of quiet admiration and knowing.
"That's why Raiden got jealous. Even when you were with women, I could feel his emotions—I know you did too. But you still hoped his love for you would be stronger than his doubt."
Ren tilted his head slightly, looking at her with something unreadable.
"What a fool," he said, not cruelly, but with the acceptance of someone who had seen too much. "Love is complicated. But someone has to be the one who keeps it strong. You expected him to do it, too. And he should have."
He smiled—but not the Ren she knew.
Something else. Something slipping between layers of restraint.
For a moment, she almost—
No.
She shook her head and looked away, jaw tightening just slightly. The air between them felt heavier, charged with something unspoken.
When she turned back, she saw them—Raiden and her brother, both watching, both surprised. Raiden's brows knitted for a fraction of a second before smoothing, but the hesitation remained in his eyes.
Ren spoke first, his voice measured, carrying a quiet finality.
"Don't misunderstand, Raiden. You see, she's loyal to the end. She's a keeper. I hope you two can reconcile."
He didn't wait for a response, and he didn't offer anything more. Without looking back, he walked away, his footsteps deliberate, unhurried.
Raiden and Ena's brother stood in uneasy silence, awkward in the lingering weight of his words. The tension sat between them like an unspoken question neither was willing to voice.
Ena exhaled slowly, turning to her brother. Without a word, she bowed slightly in respect before walking away, the grace of her movement unshaken. She returned to her duties as Duchess of the territories she governed for the Eternal Empire.
Perfection Is a Lie
Ren was in his dominion again, within his mind, while his body moved through the halls toward the training grounds.
He needed a distraction.
He was angry.
The restraint he had spent so long mastering was slipping.
And the other self revelled in it.
"Well, that was fun, don't you think?" The voice curled through his thoughts like smoke, indulgent, lingering just enough to test his patience. "I think we were about to get somewhere with Ena."
A pause.
"Raiden should have had more faith in her. Ena's a keeper, that's for sure. Don't you agree, Ren?"
The amusement in the words was calculated, laced with something that unravelled logic, slow and insidious.
Ren clenched his jaw, forcing his steps to remain even.
He wasn't going to entertain him.
Not now.
Not when every word threatened to pull him deeper into something he refused to become again.
As Ren reached the training ground, he picked up a new firearm—the latest creation from the Chibana family.
He fired.
No recoil. No need to reload.
Unlimited ammunition.
Bullets faster than the speed of light, leaving behind only the whisper of displacement in the air.
A weapon like this was a statement—a reminder.
The Eternal Empire had long mastered power beyond comprehension—but holding back had always been the actual test. Why rush to conquer the world when time itself bent to their will?
Better to watch.
Better to wait.
Better to let the world evolve—
Let it struggle,
rise,
fall,
fracture,
rebuild.
Let them—the ones who dared defy the inevitable—
claw at the edges of power,
convince themselves they had control,
pretend they shaped history,
dictated outcomes,
held the future in their grasp.
Let them fight against the Eternal Empire.
Against the Nine.
Against everything that had long decided their fate before they took their first breath.
Against him.
Ren fired again.
Not because he needed to.
But because, for a fleeting moment, he wanted to feel something break.
The gun did.
It couldn't keep up.
It exploded in his grip, fragments scattering across the training ground. He let it go without hesitation, already reaching for another.
Every weapon within his reach, he used them all.
The culmination of his hard work, his relentless pursuit of mastery. He had perfected everything he could find, everything the world had to offer.
But in the end, it was the sword he enjoyed most.
Steel against steel, strike after strike, precision honed beyond human comprehension. The AI holograms fell before him, one after another, until even simulated resistance seemed meaningless.
And then—
His blade nearly sliced through Yuki Chibana.
She stopped just short of the edge, staring at the sword—her family's finest creation, forged from a steel even they didn't fully understand.
Their plasma weapons were formidable, but this steel was superior, beyond superior.
Its origins were unknown, a material given by the Eternal Empire long ago, entrusted to the Chibana family to craft countless weapons for its armies.
Plasma burned—plasma cut. Plasma consumed.
But this steel—this mystery—endured.
It did not erode. It did not falter. It was unbreakable, forged from something beyond the limits of their world.
And the Chibana had willingly submitted it from the very beginning. Without resistance. Without defiance.
Ren exhaled, the weight of the blade familiar in his hand.
Perfection wasn't just in the weapon.
It was in him.
But then, he thought about it again.
Perfection didn't exist.
Not to him.
Not ever.
The world had bowed before him when he first became the Black Dragon Emperor.
They had worshipped him as a perfect being, a force beyond mortality, an existence so absolute that flaws were inconceivable in their eyes.
But he had never called himself perfect.
He never had, never would.
Perfection was an illusion—a belief shaped by those too blinded by power to see its cracks.
To him, there had always been fractures.
Mistakes.
Failures.
Moments where restraint had frayed and choices had weighed heavier than even his mastery could bear.
And yet, they still looked at him as if he were something beyond them.
Something untouchable.
Something inevitable.
He exhaled, gripping the blade tightly.
Let them believe what they wanted.
In the end, he wasn't perfect.
He was simply what remained.